


today lingers on like a bad year

by lokium



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: City Elf Origin, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:02:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4752434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokium/pseuds/lokium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's strange, really, that the events of one day can determine the course of your entire life.</p>
<p>(aka i keep starting too many save files on dao. small fics about the different warden origins.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	today lingers on like a bad year

You kill Vaughan Kendells, the slimy rat that he continues to be up to his dying moments, and spit on his corpse before you leave. You know Shianni will flinch at unexpected touches from now on, and become hardened to the world; this happens often enough in the alienage, but for it to happen to your own cousin – you hate Kendells with everything you have.

When you return to the alienage, it’s with the Arl’s guards hot on your heels, and only the grace of Duncan (and maybe the Maker) saves you from what would doubtless be a humiliating and painful execution designed to make an example of you. You have a short amount of time to say your goodbyes, which you use to touch in with Soris, Alarith, Dilywn and Gethon, and finally your father. He tells you your mother would be proud, and there’s the expected rush of joy that appears whenever he says something similar, but at the same time, your stomach twists uncomfortably; by everyone’s accounts, Adaia was wild and free and spirited, but you doubt she’d condone murder, regardless of how justified it was.

You take a minute to venture behind the hospice, hoping to find the children you spoke to before this whole mess kicked off. They’d been playing some inane game, something about heroes, and you’d asked why it was about humans, not elves. _Do you know any elf heroes?_ , one had asked, and at the time, you’d conceded the point. Now, you wonder if they would consider you a hero, or whether the bloodshed caused by your hand would disqualify you from that title.

Duncan is quiet as the two of you journey south, and despite how many questions you have about the Grey Wardens, Darkspawn and countless other things, so are you. You know he knows what you did, but you’re not sure if that has made him think less or more of you. Back before the wedding fiasco, he’d mentioned the merit of knowing when to choose diplomacy over violence, but he’s a warrior; surely he also understands that sometimes the only choice will result in death.

In the hastily set up camp at Ostagar, you talk to Daveth on the way to the quartermaster. Your fellow recruit talks in terms of force, of having no alternative but to join the Wardens. You bite back the reply that rests behind your teeth, that you killed a human noble and if you return home, you’ll be killed. That you have no home now. That this _choice_ is a far cry from whatever one he felt he had.

Daveth doesn’t survive the Joining. You can’t tell whether or not you’re surprised.


End file.
